"O Death, Where Is Thy Sting"

My absolute earliest memories as a child were both from the same day when I was two years old; December 18, 1957...

Sitting on the floor of the living room at my grandparents home on the west side of Cleveland. I remember looking up at my grandpa ( Antonio ). He smiled and asked me if I was hungry. He slowly went to the kitchen and came back with a banana. He then took his seat back on the turquois recliner. 

My next memory is of my mother suddenly picking me up and taking me out of the room.  I don't remember anything else about that day, except for what I have been told.

It seems that mom plucked me off my blanket as she realized that grandpa was having a heart attack. As they waited for the ambulance she kept me in a side bedroom so as not to witness what she knew was happening.

My only knowledge of the kind of man my grandpa was comes from my mothers memory and her vivid and loving description of this incredible man who came to the U.S. from Italy as a young boy of 14. Lived with a family in the south and at some point hopped a freight train and made it to Cleveland.  He served in the U.S. Army in WWI where he was wounded in the shoulder and had to walk a great distance to get medical attention.  He came back home after the war and sent back to Italy for a young lady to be his bride. The family tradition of the oldest daughter being married first, prompted the parents of that young lady to send the older sister instead of his intended, so he married her!  They had four children and he owned his own shoe maker shop at the corner of W.57 and Lorain. When WWII broke out, he worked in a war plant.   I know that when my parents were married and purchased their home "way out" in North Royalton, he was one of the few that saw their vision and thought they had done the right thing.  I know that there was a young shoot of a cherry tree in the middle of their barren back yard, that my dad almost pulled out thinking it was a weed, but grandpa knew better, and so as I grew up without my grandpa, I always was reminded of him by the presence of that tree. Each year when the cherries came in, I would pause to remember the man who I really never got to know.   I could continue with more stories I learned second hand, but the one I know the best is this....

In 2008 after a terrible few years of no employment and really feeling down, I was being considered for my present position as the director of The Nehemiah Mission of Cleveland.  I decided to take a ride down to the neighborhood of the mission just to take a look around. I knew that it was in the general vicinity of my grandparents home. (Grandma passed when I was 18) I hadn't been to that neighborhood in many years.

I drove around through the west side streets recognizing names of streets and occasionally recognizing a building or two, but in general didn't know exactly where I was at any given moment.

Suddenly, the driver of the car behind me began honking and waving at me with one finger ( perhaps he was an amputee?)... Then I glanced down at my speedometer and realized I was holding up traffic as I gawked at the scenery around me  ( so much for the amputee theory). I quickly turned left into a small parking lot in order to get out of the way  because something was telling me I needed to look closer at the area.  As I maneuvered my car around in that parking lot, I came to the sudden realization that I was now parked on the site of what had been my grandparents home at W.73 and Madison Ave.

A wave of emotion came over me as I began to recognize the remnants of the neighborhood my mom had lived in. I saw my grandpa in that chair and I heard him tell me; "come to the city"...
(To really understand the full significance of those words, you might want to read the story of Nehemiah from the Old Testament.)

Today is 56 years that he has been gone and I know that my mom is still pained deeply by his death. I wish that I could have had the chance to really know my grandpa, but when I really think about it he has in fact always  been with me. He was there in the way my mother raised me, the values he instilled in her-she instilled in me. His compassion, his faith, his devotion to family, love of country all somehow became a part of me... "But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written; "O death where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"  I Corinthians 15:54-55

It's all how you think about it.....

So... here's a thought;
Allow fuel prices to escalate to unnafordable levels, manipulate the health care system to a point where no one can afford to pay for health care without first paying exhorbidant insurance premiums, pay congress unending salaries while they allow banks to destroy the housing industry, raise taxes to a point where people must decide between clothing/housing/food and paying their Federal, State, Regional, County and Local taxes...  what is the answer?      Gun Control.. and do it quick before people say "We have had enough."  Maybe these politicians aren't as dumb as we think they are.